There was a moment in that elevator when the entire situation changed.
Edward’s first reaction to being fired was basically, “Fuck him, I’m leaving.” His second reaction was that he could talk the owner out of it.
Both made perfect sense.
He was hurt. He was pissed. And he was a salesman who had spent years believing he could talk his way into, or out of, almost anything.
The problem was that neither of those reactions had anything to do with the situation he was actually in.
He was getting fired.
Fair or unfair, the decision had been made. I had already fought the battle and lost. There was no version of the next twenty minutes where we walked into that room and everybody suddenly said, “You know what? Never mind.”
Once that became clear, the objective had to change.
The objective was no longer to keep the job.
It was to leave with his reputation intact, avoid saying something he would regret (this is the part I’ve gotten better at), preserve whatever relationships were worth preserving, and get paid as much as possible on the way out.
That sounds obvious when you’re reading it calmly.
It is incredibly difficult when you are the one whose career just got punched in the face.
I think we waste a lot of energy trying to win battles that have already ended. We keep arguing the case. We try one more pitch. We send the angry email. We demand that somebody admit they were wrong.
Sometimes they were wrong.
That doesn’t mean they’re going to change the decision.
There’s a point where continuing to fight for the old outcome actually makes the new situation worse.
Edward eventually got there somewhere in the mid-30s of that elevator ride. You could almost see the switch flip. He was still angry. Still hurt. His face was still a mess.
But now he understood the assignment.
This wasn’t about saving his job anymore. It was a negotiation.
And he was really good at negotiations.
He walked into the room, kept himself together, made his case and got a very good exit package. That package eventually helped him start another company.
None of that makes the firing fair. It doesn’t retroactively make the owner right.
It just means Edward stopped needing the situation to be fair before he started dealing with the situation as it actually was.
That’s the thing I’ve tried to remember ever since:
When you can’t change the outcome, change the objective.
Be pissed. Be disappointed. Fight like hell while there is still something to fight for.
But learn to recognize the moment when the fight is over.
Because once it is, your job isn’t to win the last battle.
It’s to put yourself in the best possible position for whatever comes next.